Farmers' markets: A growing movement
Open-air outlets offer farmers visbility, eliminate middle-man
They come to towns to sell their fresh goods to all-too-obliging customers, but for small farmers, the best part of the burgeoning farmers’ market movement is a golden opportunity to get their name out.
The markets themselves have a folksy appeal, typically comprised of makeshift bazaars of six to 10 canvas tents, beneath which farmers hawk their just-picked goods. They are popping up all over the place. The USDA says that the number of farmers’ markets has more than doubled over the last decade to roughly 4,000. The Bay State has about 120 farmers’ markets, says Jeff Cole, executive director of the Federation of Massachusetts Farmer’s Markets (FMFM), up from about 90 six years ago.Cole, who also owns Silvermine Farms in Sutton, says that farmers’ markets have tapped a changing attitude in American about food. The fresher the product, the more the nutrients, he says, adding that pro-nutrition mindset has affected most people.
Many markets are volunteer-run and FMFM helps these groups to set up liability insurance, certify that products are locally produced, and help administer goverment subsidy payment programs for lower-income buyers. The group also runs seven markets, including the Framingham Village Green Market, as well as several in the Boston area, Cole says.
Bigger payday for crops
Catherine Beyer, a farmer who grows pesticide-fee crops on farmland in New Braintree and Sterling, sells such produce as blueberries, potatoes, and zucchini at markets in Paxton, Sterling and Holden. This gives her time to pick and tend to the crops, since the produce is typically sold during mid-afternoon hours in the middle of the week. Another big benefit: A higher rate of return than what she gets from wholesalers. Her products are also sold from an honor-system farmstand, B&B Farms, in New Braintree.
For Beyer, farmers’ markets represent an attractive option because they pool together many of the products sold at supermarkets, so a person can come to a market to get produce, cheese, milk, and meat. That creates more of the critical mass necessary to bring in foot traffic. "When they come, they come in bunches," Beyer says of her customers. "The more vendors, the less people have to stop at the grocery store."
The more traffic at farmers’ markets, the better it is for local farmers, say Rickey and Sandy Evangelista, dairy farmers who own Hancock Farm in Barre. After selling milk directly to distributors for 15 years, they went out on their own and began milk delivery in the Holden area. Now they have about 125 home-delivery customers, representing 90 percent of their business.
"We do it really for advertising," Rickey says. "It gets the name out there so people may look to get home delivery."
Farming, says Sandy, has become increasingly less profitable. Razor-thin margins are extremely vulnerable to increases in electricity and fuel costs. Selling direct helps make up that difference, although sometimes not enough.
From conversations with customers, a constant theme emerges, she says: Consumers are paying far more attention to the chemicals and contents of what they eat, and farmers’ markets are filling the void for organic food when national chains cannot.
As if on queue, while she speaks from her booth at the Holden farmers’ market, one of her delivery customers, Ron Premo of Holden, walks up to pick up his four quarts of milk and a goat cheese. He was on the way home, he says, and figured he would get it now.
"This stuff is fresher and it just tastes better than what I get at the supermarket," he says. "I don’t know why more people don’t do it."
Kenneth J. St. Onge can be reached at kstonge@wbjournal.com
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